Computing and communication networks typically include network devices, such as routers, firewalls, switches, servers, or gateways, which transfer or switch data, such as packets, from one or more sources to one or more destinations. Network devices may operate on the packets as the packets traverse the network, such as by forwarding or filtering the packet-based network traffic.
Some network devices (e.g., firewalls) utilize a ring-based aging mechanism (e.g., referred to as an “ager ring”) to manage time expirations associated with resources (e.g., firewall sessions). When a time associated with a managed resource expires, the ager ring may delete the managed resource (e.g., delete the firewall session). When the ager ring accelerates a session expiration process, efficient refreshing of the session may be degraded. For example, if a continuous flow of packets are provided during a session, the session may continuously refresh. The ager ring may update the session from one position (e.g., time interval or bucket) of the ager ring to another position of the ager ring, for every packet that is received. For multithread-based network devices, such an arrangement may cause the ager ring to lock old and new positions of the ager ring prior to updating the session.